Some of you may know that I was personally fairly close to Gabby Giffords. I also have a son sitting in a kindergarten class right now. I'm also known as an outspoken liberal on this board.

I have opinions about gun control policies, but I don't see that as the critical issue that links these issues. I agree that guns don't kill people, people kill people.

We as a nation need to have a grown up discussion about our culture. But I think we are missing the issue if we talk about gun control.

We need to talk about these incidents as a function of all sorts of factors, key of which are mental health.

A couple of years ago, I think my son was 3 years old and we were at a video arcade, he wanted to play one of the gun games. Something clicked for me when he asked about that.

I realized that we have created a culture of murder and killing as a form of entertainment. I realized that somehow we as a society have embraced murder as a game or entertainment. And for some reason, rape sits squrely on the other side of the line of acceptability.

We don't make movies or video games that glorify rape. That crosses a universally unacceptable like that somehow murder doesn't cross.

When I realized this contradiction in our social make up, I made a choice that I was not going to allow my son to engage in games that treat violence as a game. I started to teaching him that guns are dangerous machines should be treated with extraordinary care. And that they can but used in a lot of ways including for violence. That they aren't toys. We agreed that he wouldn't play video games that treat killing as a game. But in return, when he is old enough, we would go learn how to operate a gun and that he'd get to experience shooting a gun in a responsible way.

I say all of this because I think there is a 3rd way to have this discussion. We can protect gun rights. We can talk about our culture. We need to discuss the role of mental illness in these incidents.

It doesn't have to be a dumbed down discussion where one side focuses exclusively on banning guns and the other side focuses on expanding access to guns.

This is a multidimensional issue that demands a grown up discussion.

I guess this is my opportunity to share my thoughts in hope that it's a contribution to that effort.

No amount of playing violent video games is going to make a normal, empathetic kid, teen, nor adult a killer.

The flip side is: no amount of shielding sociopathic kids, teens, or adults from violent media is going to make them empathetic or less prone to violence.

When the mechanism for empathy is broken in a human being, all bets are off. And treating a sociopathic person is FAR from easy. There are some medications that can help, if the diagnosis and behavioral treatment are there as well. But as population increases, more and more broken people are going to be scattered throughout the population. This is just the reality of the situation.

The solution, as I see it, is emotional evaluations... It might sound new agy and weird, but imo it's analogous to what schools are already doing with academics. Math, science, writing, logic, history and emotional development should all be standard fare for all kids. It would be easy to find out who had problems pretty early on, and avoid most of these tragedies. Hell, even so called "normal" kids could benefit from this stuff. I had a horrible time fitting in as a child and I attribute most of that to poor emotional development and a lack of social skills.

Single parent families that don't allow a balanced upbringing. Putting 12 year old kids with a hard on and raging hormones on Ritalin before they have a chance to figure out who they are and and a father to set an example of the path they need to take at critical crossroads in life. The internet exposing kids to things I still find shocking. The disarray of your future in this economy. Information overload.

It's a cocktail of problems.

I can say this however with 100% certainty from my observation; the people who seem to be going off the grid are not game hunters or trained killers. Those arts take discipline, focus and longevity to learn so don't feed my 'violence culture'. They are some of the most centered people I've met in my life.

Who wants to bet this guy was a boy with no idea how to be a man because of the above factors? I'll bet he was a picked on, frustrated, drugged up (prescribed drugs) emasculated confused little boy who snapped.

I'm taking bets.

__________________ “The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not” - Thomas Jefferson, 1801.

No amount of playing violent video games is going to make a normal, empathetic kid, teen, nor adult a killer.

The flip side is: no amount of shielding sociopathic kids, teens, or adults from violent media is going to make them empathetic or less prone to violence.

When the mechanism for empathy is broken in a human being, all bets are off. And treating a sociopathic person is FAR from easy. There are some medications that can help, if the diagnosis and behavioral treatment are there as well. But as population increases, more and more broken people are going to be scattered throughout the population. This is just the reality of the situation.

The solution, as I see it, is emotional evaluations... It might sound new agy and weird, but imo it's analogous to what schools are already doing with academics. Math, science, writing, logic, history and emotional development should all be standard fare for all kids. It would be easy to find out who had problems pretty early on, and avoid most of these tragedies. Hell, even so called "normal" kids could benefit from this stuff. I had a horrible time fitting in as a child and I attribute most of that to poor emotional development and a lack of social skills.

this is a good post. however, imo it is naive to suggest these solutions could be implemented. america has arrived to this point by design.

You don't know what the **** you are talking about. The drugs are not the problem. The fractured mess that is our mental health care system is the issue.

It's a mix of both, not sure of the proportions, but I agree as a society we rely to heavily on medications to fix everything. I also agree there isn't enough personal accountability. And the big wooden spoon mixing this concoction is parenting and in most cases seasoned (heavily) with upbringing and environment.

There isn't one easy cure, just as there isn't one big evil prognosticator. Awareness to mental health problems is more important than gun control if you ask me.

It's a mix of both, not sure of the proportions, but I agree as a society we rely to heavily on medications to fix everything. I also agree there isn't enough personal accountability. And the big wooden spoon mixing this concoction is parenting and in most cases seasoned (heavily) with upbringing and environment.

There isn't one easy cure, just as there isn't one big evil prognosticator. Awareness to mental health problems is more important than gun control if you ask me.

I agree medicines are over prescribed (especially in kids). The problem is that people think the medicines "cure" the mental issues. It doesn't. The medicine is there to allow conditions to be worked on.

Also, some conditions are not fixable despite medicines and therapy. Several types of personality disorders can't be fixed. There was a mention in one of the articles I read that the shooter had a personality disorder. This guy might not have been treatable. Unfortunately our mental health care system and society's attitudes toward mental illness are inadequate.

__________________
The diameter of your knowledge is the circumference of your actions. Ras Kass

It's a mix of both, not sure of the proportions, but I agree as a society we rely to heavily on medications to fix everything. I also agree there isn't enough personal accountability. And the big wooden spoon mixing this concoction is parenting and in most cases seasoned (heavily) with upbringing and environment.

There isn't one easy cure, just as there isn't one big evil prognosticator. Awareness to mental health problems is more important than gun control if you ask me.

There is a good take. Some things should be self-evident like the shooters obviously ****ed up mental state. Others should be considered as well like what psychotropics were being prescribed for what conditions for all of these shooters and how do people on these psychotropics access their weapons. You ask me people on psychotropics shoud not have access to guns, period.

If society wants to be honest and drop the PC thought process....Society would be safer if we treated bad people and true lunatics like biting dogs.

That would make citizens safer than taking gun rights away from sane, rational, law abiding citizens.

PC is about non offensive language. What you're talking about is shooting people in the village square. How can you propose such an idea and in the same breath call yourself one of the sane, rational ones? Maybe I'm misunderstanding you... We already have a death penalty for the worst of us, and this dude would have certainly been a deserving candidate. What more are you proposing we do?